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Pakistan Probes Advani’s Role In Plot To Kill Jinnah
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| Indian Home Minister LK Advani faces possible probe |
ISLAMABAD, Jan.31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Pakistani court officials are re-examining a 50-year-old criminal case against the current Indian Home Minister, LK Advani, but the government has refused to confirm reports it would demand his extradition, news agencies reported.
Senior officials of the Sindh High Court in the southern port city of Karachi confirmed they were reviewing charges against Advani over his alleged involvement in a plot to kill Pakistan's founding father, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, soon after the partition of the sub-continent in 1947.
"Such a case does exist, we have received instructions from higher authorities to send the file," a senior high court official told AFP. "We are collecting the record and trying to dig out the file of this very old case."
Pakistan has said it is preparing a list of terrorist suspects it wants India to hand over in response to a similar list of 20 names issued by New Delhi after an attack on its Parliament last month. India has accused two Pakistan-based groups of launching that attack and threatened war unless Pakistan ends what New Delhi calls "cross-border terrorism" in the restive Himalayan state of Kashmir.
Court sources said Karachi police registered a case on September 10, 1947, against 18 Hindu hardliners, including LK Advani, over the alleged plot to kill Jinnah and other leaders of the Pakistan movement earlier that year. Jinnah was the first governor general of Pakistan and is now revered as Quaid-e-Azam, or the Great Leader of the nation.
Six people were convicted in the case and were extradited to India in 1948, but 12 absconded, including the Karachi-born LK Advani who later migrated to India.
Pakistani daily newspaper, The News, reported Wednesday Pakistan may include the 72-year-old LK Advani on its list of suspects wanted in Islamabad, but an interior ministry official refused to confirm the report. "We have not seen the file and we are not in a position to comment," the official said.
LK Advani, one of the most strident critics of Pakistan support for Muslims fighting in Kashmir, remained in Pakistan for 10 years after the partition of the sub-continent, moving to India in 1957, according to BJP's website.
India dismissed Wednesday the Pakistani newspaper report that LK Advani will be in the list of "criminals" Pakistan would like India to hand over to it as "juvenile posturing" by Islamabad the.
"If true, such reports are suggestive of little more than juvenile posturing by Pakistan," an External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said in response to a question on the report.
Jinnah, who is the founder of Pakistan was a fervent supporter of the Indian National Congress advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity early in his career. He played a major role in negotiating the Lucknow Pact (1916) between the League and the Congress, in which the latter conceded that Muslims should have a separate communal electorate to insure them adequate legislative representation. Hindu-Muslim cooperation soon broke down, however, and the Congress reversed this position.
Disillusioned with the Congress, Jinnah resigned in 1930. From 1934 until his death he headed the Muslim League and guided its struggle for an independent Pakistan, a state that would include the predominantly Muslim areas of India.
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